Ricerc@Sapienza

This paper addresses the detection of surface slow moving targets by means of an array passive radar based on low-EIRP satellite illuminators of opportunity. Particularly, the use of the receiving array of K elements is considered to provide increased detection capability for targets with limited radar cross section, together with the capability to estimate the target direction-of-arrival. A full processing scheme is proposed to exploit together both the long integration times and the multiple receiving elements.

The exploitation of the Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) as transmitters of opportunity in passive radar systems for maritime surveillance is particularly attractive because of the main advantages consisting in a global coverage (even in open sea) and in the availability of multiple sources (different satellites and constellations). The main drawback stays in the restricted power budget provided by navigation satellites. This characteristic makes necessary to conceive, define and develop detection techniques able to overcome such limitation.

The paper puts forward a moving target detection technique for passive bistatic radar system based on GNSS signals for maritime surveillance applications. If from one hand navigation satellites are extremely attractive as opportunistic sources for passive radar due to their global coverage and the availability of multiple satellites, on the other hand they provide a restricted power budget. To strengthen the target energy sufficiently to allow its detection, observation time has to be increased up to several tens of seconds.

This paper puts forward a moving target detection technique for space-based passive radar. The main drawback of satellite transmitters for radar applications is the very low power density on the ground level, which requires long integration times to adequately increase the signal to background ratio. To this aim, in this paper a new technique is proposed relying on a hybrid coherent/non-coherent integration of the received signal in the Fractional Fourier Transform (FrFT) domain.

The paper addresses the exploitation of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) as transmitters of opportunity in passive bistatic radar (PBR) systems for maritime surveillance. The main limitation of this technology is the restricted power budget provided by navigation satellites, which makes it necessary to define innovative moving target detection techniques specifically tailored for the system under consideration.